Hofner Icon Series Beatle Bass Sunburst

by Hofner

Product Features

• Hofner Icon Violin bass
• Sunburst Finish
• Based on original Hofner 500/1

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 46 x 7 x 15 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B003S3RXTW
• Item model number: Icon Series Beatle Bass Sunburst
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #25,836 in Musical Instruments (See Top 100 in Musical Instruments)

Product Description

Hofner Icon Violin bass. Sunburst Finish. Based on original Hofner 500/1-With case. Value priced!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cool bass, but, January 21, 2011

By 

steven j alcott - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hofner Icon Series Beatle Bass Sunburst (Electronics)

Cool bass, but the stock strings were crap. It would be worth adding the price of the LaBella flats made expressly for this bass so it would play and sound like it's supposed to.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing bass, June 28, 2010

By 

Jack (Simpsonville, South Carolina, US) - See all my reviews

Out of my 4 other basses, this is my favorite performance bass. It looks good on stage and sound unbelievable through an amp.

When I want to practice it's good to use if I don't have an amp since it's a hollow body. The minor down side is that it feels cheap and fragile, but it doesn't really bother me.

All in all, I love this bass!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cool Bass (Even if you don't love the Beatles), August 25, 2011

By 

Patti Cake "basschick" (los angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hofner Icon Series Beatle Bass Sunburst (Electronics)

I was looking for a very light bass recently, and I ran across the Hofner Icon bass at Guitar Center. It surely is light, but what I hadn't considered about violin bases is that they're resonant. I really like how this bass sounds - actually I prefer the tone slightly to the more expensive models with the actual Hofner pickups, especially for metal and hard rock.

On the downside, like a lot of inexpensive instruments, I've run into some issues when I've seen this bass in various stores. The first one I tried had some buzz on the low E string, and the tech at the GC I was at told me that this kind of bass is very hard to set up, and not a great candidate for drop tunings. I've also run across several with loose hardware - nothing you couldn't tighten up yourself, but still worth mentioning. And I've seen minor finish issues on a couple. I also saw one with the headstock cracking off the neck, but that could have been the way people treated it in the store.

Something worth knowing is that I've been told this bass won't fit all the strings its more expensive brothers will - I believe the holes in the tuners are a little thinner - but I've been told it will fit LaBella Beatle Bass strings.

All that being said, I think this is a great bass for the money, and it has a tone different than most basses - dialed in right, there's plenty of bottom end, and it's pretty versatile. I preferred it to the Epiphone violin bass, although you may feel differently. If you either buy in person and give the bass a once over, or buy from someplace with a good exchange policy in case you get one with an issue, you won't have to worry if you run into an issue. Definitely a fun bass with plenty of bottom end, and once you master the controls, more variety of tone than I expected.